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03 Aug 2015 9:16:53am

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I listened intently but was left with the feeling that the contributors were participating in an Olympic event for mental gymnastics. They kept trying to explain their religions by convoluted and intricate arguments that failed Ockham's Razor. Every issues raised could be explained in the absence of god by evidentiary argument. Some sounded like they were saying, "Yes, I know there's no evidence, but I don't care and I'm going to believe anyway." Faith after all, is the belief in something, in the absence of evidence, or in contradiction to the evidence. All admitted to a belief in god, as an act of faith.

I've heard evolutionary arguments that religion might be hardwired by into our brains, or at least, the propensity to believe in supernatural explanations. A tribe united and protected by a god will pass on more genes that a group of individualists.

I will walk shoulder to shoulder with the religious to support their right to practice their faith. But I think the debate has crystallized the nub of the issue, which is that religion is no longer a valid argument for the making of laws or the doing of things.

I think religion should be practiced by consenting adults in private, and has no place in running the world anymore. If your god demands you do something, then by all means do that, with the proviso that your action has no effect on anyone else. Because your god demands you to do something, is not a valid argument to force the rest of humanity to do it. Chaplains in schools is a case in point. Gay marriage.

So religion should be separated from societal decision making.

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